5 ms·

I have tons of anecdata suggesting worse… I just filled up a propane tank, 3lbs of fuel was almost $10 whereas a year ago it was $5-$6 The price of a Californ

by tomc1985 5y ago

I have tons of anecdata suggesting worse… I just filled up a propane tank, 3lbs of fuel was almost $10 whereas a year ago it was $5-$6 The price of a California burrito most places here is almost $10, they were closer to $7/$8 before pandemic started spiking beef prices It’s getting harder and harder to keep the bill at Costco under $100 Uber/Lyft rides that used to be $10 cost $15-$20 during non-surge hours And so on…

notJim 5y ago
A lot of this stuff is transitory, and there are signs it's starting to come down. However with the rise of delta, I think we're in for a rocky ride ahead. Edit: in the spirit of worker solidarity though, if you can convince your boss to give you a 20% raise by showing them the M2 money supply, I fully support you in that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2021/08/12/cpi-data-offers-encouragement-to-transitory-inflation-camp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2021/08/12/cpi-data-...
gruez 5y ago
> I have tons of anecdata suggesting worse… And that's flawed due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic [thing] increases in price: "omg inflation!" [thing stays the same]: "meh" result? "omg inflation!"
- tomc1985 5y ago
  But… that is inflation. Prices are going up. Such is the anecdata? Is this effect global? Who knows, it’s anecdata
  - gruez 5y ago
    >But… that is inflation did I say it wasn't? The BLS freely admits that inflation is higher than usual at 5.4% YOY. What's being disputed is whether it's 5.4% as the BLS claims or 20% as GGP claims. >Is this effect global? Who knows, it’s anecdata The problem is that listing a bunch of things that's gone up by 20% doesn't mean the overall CPI went up 20%. CPI is a weighted measure, so the things you listed only contribute 1% to it, then it can go up 2000% and the CPI wouldn't be anywhere close to the claimed 20%.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      I read the gp comments as questioning the relevance of the CPI. From my experience it understates the very real price increases I am seeing where I am
      - gruez 5y ago
        >From my experience it understates the very real price increases I am seeing where I am the "very real price increases" you're seeing is clouded by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic. The CPI uses a fixed basket to weigh the different price increases. Meanwhile in your head, your brain weighs price increases based on the shock factor. That lyft ride that got 2x more expensive? That's going to have much more mental weight than your rent that stayed about the same, even though the rent makes up 40% of your monthly spend and your lyft rides makes up 5%.
        notJim 5y ago
        Also good old fashioned confirmation bias. If someone thinks inflation must be through the roof and the government is lying about it, then they're going to notice things that get more expensive, while ignoring things that get cheaper or stay the same.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        The prices faced by the average tech worker are very different. Restaurant prices in SF have one of the highest increasing prices indices in the country, you can look it up. Ubers have also increased in price. Groceries.. have not.
  - notJim 5y ago
    > Is this effect global? Who knows, it’s anecdata You say this like no one measures inflation, but in fact we do measure inflation quite carefully, and it's nowhere near 20%.
    - kylebyproxy 5y ago
      Ehh, not _that_ carefully. Real inflation is notoriously difficult to track, as you need to take into consideration things like decreases in manufacturing quality, ingredient substitutions, planned obsolescence, etc.
      - notJim 5y ago
        Ehh, they try pretty damn carefully. They absolutely do take into consideration things like changing quality and ingredients. > Pricing information is then sent to our national office, where specialists who have detailed knowledge about the particular goods or services review the data. These specialists check the data for accuracy and consistency, and make any necessary corrections or adjustments. Adjustments can range from an adjustment for a change in the size or quantity of a packaged item, to more complex adjustments based upon statistical analysis of the value of an item's features or quality. Thus, commodity specialists strive to prevent changes in the quality of items from affecting the CPI's measurement of price change. > Hedonic quality adjustment is one of the techniques the CPI uses to account for changing product quality within some CPI item samples. Hedonic quality adjustment refers to a method of adjusting prices whenever the characteristics of the products included in the CPI change due to innovation or the introduction of completely new products. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm#Question_11 https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm#Question_1... https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/questions-and-answers.htm https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/questions-and-ans...
  - jxramos 5y ago
    I've been feeling the price rises too, I second the Costco thing entirely too. I have a ton of receipt data I can analyze. I've been curious to track my personal expenses for things like milk, take out burgers, and other stuff I regularly purchase and have lots of data points on over time. I think the anecdata speaks, very loudly for the individual visibly paying more.
    - tharkun__ 5y ago
      I would like to know more. My first suspicion is that most people don't track this data closely enough. Unfortunately after tracking this data for about 15 years, I stopped in 2018 (too cumbersome). I was able to tell you exactly how much money we spent on alcohol vs. dairy vs. veggies etc. If only I had continued, I could've provided great anecdata here, because we never really "go out". And herein lies the crux. Many if not most other people I know go out regularly. Rain or shine, recently got kids or not etc. So the pandemic hitting would drive up their Costco bills even if prices stayed flat. Happy to learn that the anecdata presented in this thread is from people like me. But otherwise my "felt" Costco bill has stayed almost the same (minus "normal" inflation).
      - jxramos 5y ago
        yah the cumbersome part is for real; for the longest I never itemized groceries, just lump sums spent. I've been slowly automating more of the process. For online purchases I write some chrome extensions that scrape the order pages and downloads a Json file for me. Works for the most part and I'm looking to extend to a few more vendors: https://github.com/jxramos/webOrders https://github.com/jxramos/webOrders. All the data captured over the years omits very fine detail for the most part; things like weights and volumes and stuff. The data is fairly messy but there should have some signal within it however. This motivates me to revisit what sort of receipt OCR stuff is out there, it's been a TODO for a long time. I'm looking for mainly partially automated stuff, fully automate the frequent vendors, manual entry the rest: https://gist.github.com/jxramos/db8195d1972b6d7f7eb0e97be51d8369 https://gist.github.com/jxramos/db8195d1972b6d7f7eb0e97be51d...
        5y ago
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > But… that is inflation. Prices are going up. Such is the anecdata? But what proportion do [thing] and [thing stays the same] make up of your budget? That's why the CPI uses a basket of goods, each in proportion to what the average person uses in their lives to find the average inflation. And some [thing]s may be more noticeable than others: yes, gas may have gone up, but your care insurance perhaps hasn't, and so perhaps hasn't parts and maintenance. But you fill up more often so you notice those prices more and suffer recency bias. In Canada, StatCan actually has a "Consumer Price Index Personal Inflation Calculator" so that you can find the quantitate number to your personal experience of inflation give your personal basket of goods, versus the average one: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015...
s5300 5y ago
The Cali Burrito increase has been insane.
- ryan_lane 5y ago
  I don't know where you've been buying them, but $10 is the normal price from the places I'd buy them and has been for ages.
  - s5300 5y ago
    San Diego man, only place it can truly be called a Cali Burrito. That shit in LA is gross. Most places have gone up about $3 since start of the pandemic.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted but yes I am speaking about SD. As for the LA cali burrito heads: don't step dudes. Y'all got plenty of great food that kicks our asses. But we have the best calimex, hands down. "Don't ever argue with a San Diegan about Mexican food"
      - s5300 5y ago
        He's probably been paying our new price for his subpar tier burritos the entire time. I'd almost shed a tear.
tayo42 5y ago
Why is that inflation and not things like supply chain problems or availability?
- gruez 5y ago
  >supply chain problems or availability If supply chain problems or availability cause prices to go up, that's still inflation. They might call it transitory inflation or whatever, but they won't say "well that's just supply chain problems so we won't count it for this month".
  - tayo42 5y ago
    I see, guess it was a bad question. In the context of this discussion the comment chain seems to be talking about money supply as being the source of inflation. Seems like there's different types of inflation. I see some other comments trying to clarify that too
azinman2 5y ago
Uber/Lyft have IPOd and no longer are being pumped artificially, and they need to make up after a year of drastically lower revenue. Lots of things increased in price but that doesn't always mean it's tied to something larger.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  So you’re saying they will lower prices after they’ve made up for the shortfall? I doubt it. That would be leaving money on the table, and that’s positively unamerican!
  - azinman2 5y ago
    That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that not only do they not have VC cash mania going on, they're also really hit by Covid. The only way they'd start lowering prices is if demand spikes, things normalized out, and Uber/Lyft wage war on each other as capitalism is supposed to work (but in reality they'll just pick turfs).
    - ghaff 5y ago
      They're also still losing money. I'd be surprised to ever see cheap prices again from them.
      - tomc1985 5y ago
        Ironically I have been riding with the local Yellow Cab again, the fixed prices they quote on their app consistently undercut Uber/Lyft and the drivers actually show up in a reasonable amount of time
nradov 5y ago
The CPI includes propane and food. Uber / Lyft prices used to be artificially cheap due to VC subsidies but most regular people barely use those services anyway.
sgtnoodle 5y ago
I like to anecdotally track burrito prices. When I worked in Hawthorne in 2010, there was a $4 burrito option. When I left in 2013, it was a $5.50 burrito. In the bay area, it seems like burritos with guacamole have been $9-11 for several years now. Restaurant breakfast burritos have seemingly gone up from $8 to about $12 in the last two years. Grocery store deli counter breakfast burritos have gone up from about $3.50 to about $4.50. Microwave burritos have gone up from $not-worth-it to $not-worth-it + 2 over the last couple years. The diner down the street from me makes the best breakfast burrito for about $9, enough to feed two people. It's pretty amazing, considering it would probably cost me $6 to recreate from the grocery store. My favorite coffee shop in 2019 had a $12 burrito that was a bit overpriced but worth it; they shut down months before the pandemic ramped up, though. I suspect it was partially because of the burrito price. Their food was expensive enough that my wife and I would always share an entree regardless of how hungry we were. We live in a touristy area, and there are local restaurants we won't even consider going to because it's so overpriced.
throw0101a 5y ago
> I just filled up a propane tank, 3lbs of fuel was almost $10 whereas a year ago it was $5-$6 Great. And what was it 2 years ago? 3 years ago? In fact propane is still cheaper now than it was in 2018: * https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU05320104 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU05320104 So yes, perhaps propane has gone up since last year. But last year it was the cheapest it's been since 1999. So of course the YoY change is going to go up. Further, in regards to CPI, what percentage of propane purchases make up of your expenses, either on a monthly or annual basis? In the US, "Propane, kerosene, firewood" make up .076% of the CPI: * https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/household-fuels.htm https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/household-fuels.htm In general, household energy makes up 3.605%, with electricity being 2.628%. So while you may feel like it's a big deal, how much of your budget is it really impacting? What were your expenses in all the various categories of spending last year, and what are they this year? Cherry picking one data point that you just happen to notice does not necessarily mean your expenses are much different in total. In Canada, StatCan has a personal inflation calculator where you can enter your own expenses for a personal basket of goods: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015... I think if the BLS had a similar tool a lot of the "I think/feel inflation is more than x%" comments would be reduced, as people wouldn't be trying to extrapolate the average CPI to themselves.

notJim 5y ago

A lot of this stuff is transitory, and there are signs it's starting to come down. However with the rise of delta, I think we're in for a rocky ride ahead. Edit: in the spirit of worker solidarity though, if you can convince your boss to give you a 20% raise by showing them the M2 money supply, I fully support you in that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2021/08/12/cpi-data-offers-encouragement-to-transitory-inflation-camp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2021/08/12/cpi-data-...

gruez 5y ago

> I have tons of anecdata suggesting worse… And that's flawed due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic [thing] increases in price: "omg inflation!" [thing stays the same]: "meh" result? "omg inflation!"

tomc1985 5y ago
But… that is inflation. Prices are going up. Such is the anecdata? Is this effect global? Who knows, it’s anecdata
- gruez 5y ago
  >But… that is inflation did I say it wasn't? The BLS freely admits that inflation is higher than usual at 5.4% YOY. What's being disputed is whether it's 5.4% as the BLS claims or 20% as GGP claims. >Is this effect global? Who knows, it’s anecdata The problem is that listing a bunch of things that's gone up by 20% doesn't mean the overall CPI went up 20%. CPI is a weighted measure, so the things you listed only contribute 1% to it, then it can go up 2000% and the CPI wouldn't be anywhere close to the claimed 20%.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    I read the gp comments as questioning the relevance of the CPI. From my experience it understates the very real price increases I am seeing where I am
    - gruez 5y ago
      >From my experience it understates the very real price increases I am seeing where I am the "very real price increases" you're seeing is clouded by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic. The CPI uses a fixed basket to weigh the different price increases. Meanwhile in your head, your brain weighs price increases based on the shock factor. That lyft ride that got 2x more expensive? That's going to have much more mental weight than your rent that stayed about the same, even though the rent makes up 40% of your monthly spend and your lyft rides makes up 5%.
      - notJim 5y ago
        Also good old fashioned confirmation bias. If someone thinks inflation must be through the roof and the government is lying about it, then they're going to notice things that get more expensive, while ignoring things that get cheaper or stay the same.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      The prices faced by the average tech worker are very different. Restaurant prices in SF have one of the highest increasing prices indices in the country, you can look it up. Ubers have also increased in price. Groceries.. have not.
- notJim 5y ago
  > Is this effect global? Who knows, it’s anecdata You say this like no one measures inflation, but in fact we do measure inflation quite carefully, and it's nowhere near 20%.
  - kylebyproxy 5y ago
    Ehh, not _that_ carefully. Real inflation is notoriously difficult to track, as you need to take into consideration things like decreases in manufacturing quality, ingredient substitutions, planned obsolescence, etc.
    - notJim 5y ago
      Ehh, they try pretty damn carefully. They absolutely do take into consideration things like changing quality and ingredients. > Pricing information is then sent to our national office, where specialists who have detailed knowledge about the particular goods or services review the data. These specialists check the data for accuracy and consistency, and make any necessary corrections or adjustments. Adjustments can range from an adjustment for a change in the size or quantity of a packaged item, to more complex adjustments based upon statistical analysis of the value of an item's features or quality. Thus, commodity specialists strive to prevent changes in the quality of items from affecting the CPI's measurement of price change. > Hedonic quality adjustment is one of the techniques the CPI uses to account for changing product quality within some CPI item samples. Hedonic quality adjustment refers to a method of adjusting prices whenever the characteristics of the products included in the CPI change due to innovation or the introduction of completely new products. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm#Question_11 https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm#Question_1... https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/questions-and-answers.htm https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/questions-and-ans...
- jxramos 5y ago
  I've been feeling the price rises too, I second the Costco thing entirely too. I have a ton of receipt data I can analyze. I've been curious to track my personal expenses for things like milk, take out burgers, and other stuff I regularly purchase and have lots of data points on over time. I think the anecdata speaks, very loudly for the individual visibly paying more.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    I would like to know more. My first suspicion is that most people don't track this data closely enough. Unfortunately after tracking this data for about 15 years, I stopped in 2018 (too cumbersome). I was able to tell you exactly how much money we spent on alcohol vs. dairy vs. veggies etc. If only I had continued, I could've provided great anecdata here, because we never really "go out". And herein lies the crux. Many if not most other people I know go out regularly. Rain or shine, recently got kids or not etc. So the pandemic hitting would drive up their Costco bills even if prices stayed flat. Happy to learn that the anecdata presented in this thread is from people like me. But otherwise my "felt" Costco bill has stayed almost the same (minus "normal" inflation).
    - jxramos 5y ago
      yah the cumbersome part is for real; for the longest I never itemized groceries, just lump sums spent. I've been slowly automating more of the process. For online purchases I write some chrome extensions that scrape the order pages and downloads a Json file for me. Works for the most part and I'm looking to extend to a few more vendors: https://github.com/jxramos/webOrders https://github.com/jxramos/webOrders. All the data captured over the years omits very fine detail for the most part; things like weights and volumes and stuff. The data is fairly messy but there should have some signal within it however. This motivates me to revisit what sort of receipt OCR stuff is out there, it's been a TODO for a long time. I'm looking for mainly partially automated stuff, fully automate the frequent vendors, manual entry the rest: https://gist.github.com/jxramos/db8195d1972b6d7f7eb0e97be51d8369 https://gist.github.com/jxramos/db8195d1972b6d7f7eb0e97be51d...
      - 5y ago
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > But… that is inflation. Prices are going up. Such is the anecdata? But what proportion do [thing] and [thing stays the same] make up of your budget? That's why the CPI uses a basket of goods, each in proportion to what the average person uses in their lives to find the average inflation. And some [thing]s may be more noticeable than others: yes, gas may have gone up, but your care insurance perhaps hasn't, and so perhaps hasn't parts and maintenance. But you fill up more often so you notice those prices more and suffer recency bias. In Canada, StatCan actually has a "Consumer Price Index Personal Inflation Calculator" so that you can find the quantitate number to your personal experience of inflation give your personal basket of goods, versus the average one: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015...

s5300 5y ago

The Cali Burrito increase has been insane.

ryan_lane 5y ago
I don't know where you've been buying them, but $10 is the normal price from the places I'd buy them and has been for ages.
- s5300 5y ago
  San Diego man, only place it can truly be called a Cali Burrito. That shit in LA is gross. Most places have gone up about $3 since start of the pandemic.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted but yes I am speaking about SD. As for the LA cali burrito heads: don't step dudes. Y'all got plenty of great food that kicks our asses. But we have the best calimex, hands down. "Don't ever argue with a San Diegan about Mexican food"
    - s5300 5y ago
      He's probably been paying our new price for his subpar tier burritos the entire time. I'd almost shed a tear.

tayo42 5y ago

Why is that inflation and not things like supply chain problems or availability?

gruez 5y ago
>supply chain problems or availability If supply chain problems or availability cause prices to go up, that's still inflation. They might call it transitory inflation or whatever, but they won't say "well that's just supply chain problems so we won't count it for this month".
- tayo42 5y ago
  I see, guess it was a bad question. In the context of this discussion the comment chain seems to be talking about money supply as being the source of inflation. Seems like there's different types of inflation. I see some other comments trying to clarify that too

azinman2 5y ago

Uber/Lyft have IPOd and no longer are being pumped artificially, and they need to make up after a year of drastically lower revenue. Lots of things increased in price but that doesn't always mean it's tied to something larger.

tomc1985 5y ago
So you’re saying they will lower prices after they’ve made up for the shortfall? I doubt it. That would be leaving money on the table, and that’s positively unamerican!
- azinman2 5y ago
  That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that not only do they not have VC cash mania going on, they're also really hit by Covid. The only way they'd start lowering prices is if demand spikes, things normalized out, and Uber/Lyft wage war on each other as capitalism is supposed to work (but in reality they'll just pick turfs).
  - ghaff 5y ago
    They're also still losing money. I'd be surprised to ever see cheap prices again from them.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      Ironically I have been riding with the local Yellow Cab again, the fixed prices they quote on their app consistently undercut Uber/Lyft and the drivers actually show up in a reasonable amount of time

nradov 5y ago

The CPI includes propane and food. Uber / Lyft prices used to be artificially cheap due to VC subsidies but most regular people barely use those services anyway.

sgtnoodle 5y ago

I like to anecdotally track burrito prices. When I worked in Hawthorne in 2010, there was a $4 burrito option. When I left in 2013, it was a $5.50 burrito. In the bay area, it seems like burritos with guacamole have been $9-11 for several years now. Restaurant breakfast burritos have seemingly gone up from $8 to about $12 in the last two years. Grocery store deli counter breakfast burritos have gone up from about $3.50 to about $4.50. Microwave burritos have gone up from $not-worth-it to $not-worth-it + 2 over the last couple years. The diner down the street from me makes the best breakfast burrito for about $9, enough to feed two people. It's pretty amazing, considering it would probably cost me $6 to recreate from the grocery store. My favorite coffee shop in 2019 had a $12 burrito that was a bit overpriced but worth it; they shut down months before the pandemic ramped up, though. I suspect it was partially because of the burrito price. Their food was expensive enough that my wife and I would always share an entree regardless of how hungry we were. We live in a touristy area, and there are local restaurants we won't even consider going to because it's so overpriced.

throw0101a 5y ago

> I just filled up a propane tank, 3lbs of fuel was almost $10 whereas a year ago it was $5-$6 Great. And what was it 2 years ago? 3 years ago? In fact propane is still cheaper now than it was in 2018: * https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU05320104 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU05320104 So yes, perhaps propane has gone up since last year. But last year it was the cheapest it's been since 1999. So of course the YoY change is going to go up. Further, in regards to CPI, what percentage of propane purchases make up of your expenses, either on a monthly or annual basis? In the US, "Propane, kerosene, firewood" make up .076% of the CPI: * https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/household-fuels.htm https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/household-fuels.htm In general, household energy makes up 3.605%, with electricity being 2.628%. So while you may feel like it's a big deal, how much of your budget is it really impacting? What were your expenses in all the various categories of spending last year, and what are they this year? Cherry picking one data point that you just happen to notice does not necessarily mean your expenses are much different in total. In Canada, StatCan has a personal inflation calculator where you can enter your own expenses for a personal basket of goods: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015... I think if the BLS had a similar tool a lot of the "I think/feel inflation is more than x%" comments would be reduced, as people wouldn't be trying to extrapolate the average CPI to themselves.